Friday's Ferrari

This is a 1951/2 Ferrari 375 4.5 litre Formula 1 car which was modified to take part in the 1952 Indianapolis 500 race. Four of the cars were entered for the race but three, driven by Americans Johnny Mauro, Bill Vukovich and Danny Oakes, failed to qualify. The fourth car, driven by Ferrari team driver Alberto Ascari, qualified but did not finish the race due to a failed rear wheel bearing. The Indianapolis 500 race at that time was one of the races which counted towards the Formula 1 world championship, which in 1952 (apart from Indianapolis) was for the smaller-engined Formula 2 cars because all the previous year's Formula 1 teams except for Ferrari had pulled out of racing. Because he was qualifying for the Indianapolis race Ascari missed the Swiss Grand Prix, the opening round of the Championship but was then victorious in the remaining six Grands Prix in his Ferrari 500 and became the 1952 World Champion. The car pictured here, serial number 04, was in a special display of Ferraris at the 1997 Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone.

In the Coys meeting the following year a Ferrari 375 Indianapolis car was entered in the HGCPA Pre-1952 Grand Prix car race by Carlos Monteverde of Brazil and the two photographs below are of that car.

As an aside, I never saw Alberto Ascari race. The first British Grand Prix I went to was at Aintree in 1955 - on 16th July. In the Monaco Grand Prix on 22nd May Alberto Ascari lost control of his Lancia D50 at a chicane and crashed into the harbour but fortunately managed to get out of his sunken car and into a rescue launch at the surface. Four days later he went to Monza to watch Eugenio Castellotti test the Ferrari 750 Monza they were to share in the Supercortemaggiore 1000km race. He borrowed Castellotti's helmet to try a few laps, but on his third lap he was exiting the Vialone Curve when the car skidded and overturned throwing him out and he died from his injuries shortly afterwards. No reason was ever found for the accident and the Vialone Curve has since been replaced by a chicane, named the Ascari Chicane.